Provisional results from JustGiving show that runners at yesterday’s Virgin Money London Marathon have so far raised £16.8m for over 1,300 causes through the site.

These figures are up 11 per cent from the same time last year, with JustGiving putting this down to the platform becoming increasingly social and encouraging fundraisers and donors to share at each point.

A spokeswoman from JustGiving said that this figure is likely to significantly increase, as usually around 20 per cent of donations come in after the event.

Virgin Money Giving said it would have details on amounts raised by Marathon runners on its site in the next couple of days. 

Anthony Nolan

Anthony Nolan, the official charity for this year’s marathon, said it is on track to raise £1m from the support of the 506 people who ran for them.

The charity’s website crashed over the weekend and remained down for an hour. A charity spokeswoman said that this was down to an overwhelming response to the story of Johnny and Sean, a cancer survivor who ran the marathon with the bone marrow donor who saved his life, which featured on BBC1.

Over 3,000 people tried to access the site at the same time which caused it to go down.

The spokeswoman said: “We worked hard to get it back up quickly so that we could maximise the incredible response to their story. The reaction on social media has been amazing, with ‘Johnny and Sean’ trending on Twitter while the story was on air.”

Other charities are starting to get an idea of how much was raised from the marathon. Over 970 people ran for Macmillan, meaning that roughly one runner in every 40 ran for the charity. A spokeswoman said that it is aiming to raise £1.6m, which is enough to fund 26 Macmillan nurses for a year.

Oxfam had 151 runners take part and a spokeswoman said that the charity is on track to raise £240,000 from the event.

Meanwhile Barnardo’s had 160 runners take part and hopes to raise £300,000.

Famous faces

Former England footballer Michael Owen and Klaxons guitarist Simon Taylor-Davis ran for Prostate Cancer UK. So far they have helped the charity raise over £300,000.

Owen said: “I’m grateful to have run for Prostate Cancer UK, obviously a great thrill to be running the marathon full stop, but to be doing it for such a great cause is another thing. I was delighted to be part of the team and to see so many of us taking part.”
 
Prostate Cancer UK director of fundraising, Mark Bishop, who  also competed in the event on behalf of the charity, said: “It was great to see Michael and Simon sporting our logo alongside our team of runners in blue and black as they paced across the capital.

“Prostate Cancer affects one in eight men, and with one man dying every hour from this disease it’s something we cannot let run away from us. Our quest for progress is a marathon, and not a sprint, but this is a race we can win.”

A 42-year-old man has died after collapsing at the finish line of the London Marathon. The man, who has not been named, is the first to die at the event since 2012 when 30-year-old Claire Squires collapsed a mile from the finish line. She was raising money for the Samaritans and in the week following her death her fund-raising page reached over £1m.

7m Britons raise money for charity through running

Elsewhere, new research from the Charities Aid Foundation, has found that nearly seven million Britons have raised money for charity through running in the last 12 months. This is a 36 per cent rise since the previous year. Each runner is also raising £78 more than in 2012/13, the average increasing to £358.

With additional reporting from Jenna Pudelek.